<p>Do you encounter many people who speak french around tulane? I know New Orleans has a french quarter and French is one of the languages spoken there, but I want to hear from the actual students.</p>
<p>I'm studying french and would like to become fluent. Do people really walk around speaking french or is it mostly alllllllllllll english?</p>
<p>Sorry Damon, you are about 40 years too late. The French Quarter is an historical name, you will not find French spoken there to any great degree. French is hardly ever found anywhere around New Orleans as an everyday language (been more than 40 years for that) and has been rapidly dying out in some of the parishes where it used to be true. As an aside, even Cajun is disappearing as an everyday language, although you can still find it easily enough and it has been actively preserved. You can even take it as a language. But I am afraid that for everyday French in North America you are stuck with Quebec.</p>
<p>I am no longer a student there, but what I am saying about French and New Orleans was true 30 years ago, so you can imagine how much more true it is now. Also I get back to New Orleans multiple times a year, and my D just started at Tulane (and is proficient in French also having taken it for 6 years and visited France, staying with a family), so I know it is still true.</p>
<p>I saw an article about French in Louisiana about 6 months ago. If I find it I will post the reference.</p>
<p>I should add that Tulane has some wonderful study abroad opportunities in France for almost any major, so you can absolutely hone your skills in that studying at Tulane. To be fair, if this is something you want to get super focused on, you should look at Middlebury College in Vermont. Gorgeous school, and considered probably the top language school in the country, certainly top 5. Both my kids looked at it. They have dorms where you can choose to live, and then you speak nothing but French from the time you walk in the door. And they are one of the three top study abroad programs in the country also, with many much larger universities coordinating onto their programs. Worth a look for you, sounds like, but give Tulane a good look also. Tulane’s library does contain a lot of historical documents that are in French. Very interesting stuff.</p>
<p>The french you will hear spoken around the French Quarter will probably be limited to: aperitif, champagne, coq au vin, escargots and omlettes! :)</p>
<p>^^^ROFLMAO don’t forget “Laissez les bons temps rouler”. I will leave out anything with “a trois” in it.</p>
<p>This is the article I remember seeing, was a bit longer back than I thought, as usual.</p>
<p>[Tulane</a> University - Preserving Louisiana French as Living Language](<a href=“http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/091908_la_french.cfm]Tulane”>http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/091908_la_french.cfm)</p>
<p>There are also French language schools within parishes around the University that you might want to consider doing service project work in.</p>